The Philosophy of Vonu (TVP Season 1 Overview)

“The ethical principal of non-coercion can be stated: One should not initiate the use of physical force against a volitional being or against property created or acquired through voluntary consent. Many people espouse this principle.”

-Rayo

~~~

For this first season of The Vonu Podcast, Shane Radliff and I focused on the ideological pillars of vonu. The list of articles covering topics mentioned during season one of TVP are as follows:

Philosophically, vonu is inherently anti-political. Much like agorism, vonu outright rejects political crusading and collective-movementism, as well as the controlled schizophrenia underpinning both of them. The servile society incorporates all three of these phenomena so as to keep individuals trapped into being vulnerable to coercion, especially by the State.

Distinguished from freedom and liberty (the absence of, or, general exemption from, coercion), vonu is uniquely known as the condition or quality of an invulnerability to coercion. Unlike playing games of legal interstices, vonu is rooted in practicality, not legality. The efficacy of vonu can be measured in terms of how long it would take for a vonuan (one who has an invulnerability to coercion) to be discovered by the bludgies.

Conducting import-export with the servile society is rather quite important, because until vonuums (the place or situation of an invulnerability to coercion) are mostly self-sufficient, doing so will continue to be necessary for survivability. Increasing competency through pursuing vonuence (the process of achieving an invulnerability to coercion) will not only elongate MTH (mean-time-to-harassment, which is the strength of vonu), but also comfort in one’s lifestyle as well. As undesirable as legal interstices are, they are a rearguard action or stopgap mitigation until vonumy (the art of achieving an invulnerability to coercion) is better developed.

Most controversial about vonu, perhaps, lies in its critique about modern political “activism.” Controlled schizophrenia is a form of experiencing Stockholm Syndrome with the State; collective-movementism is simply controlled schizophrenia on a larger scale. Political crusaders are the worst collective-movementists because as authoritarians they declare that their strategy (reformism) is the only path to liberty since it’s so “practical,” when the truth of the matter is that political crusading is itself the most highly impractical of all known strategies when examined closely.

Of course, what distinguishes libertarians from authoritarians is that the former advocates for a general exemption from coercion whereas the latter supports coercive force. Statists are worse than private criminals because they refuse to bear the responsibility for initiating the use of force, preferring instead for the State to shoulder said responsibility. Cowardice of this variety is rampant throughout the servile society, and is encouraged through the democratically republican form of a hypothetically “limited” government.

Strategically speaking, it is probably better to think of vonu not as a libertarian ideology, but rather, as a libertarian strategy. Vonu is not an anarchic school of thought, and as such, it is less concerned with mere theorizing than it is with strategizing. Facilitating direct action, in addition to measuring the efficacy of its particular techniques, is of prime importance to vonuists (those who advocate for an invulnerability to coercion).

What vonu is unafraid to show us is that most “activists” are indeed political crusaders, and as such, will never advocate for an invulnerability to coercion, because if they were to do so, they’d put themselves out of business, figuratively and literally. This disingenuousness of these wannabe politicians truly undermines most efforts at “organizing,” well, whatever. If anything, this hard won realization that vonu demonstrates for us is that lifestyle changes are the most potent and far-reaching in their ability to protect individuals from the rampages of Leviathan.

Fundamentally, vonu is a manifestation of the DIY ethic. Servile status games, city psychological pressures, and most significantly, the sanction of the victim, are ultimately antithetical to vonu, for vonumy encompasses developing methods for resisting these manipulative tricks against individual autonomy. The value of integrity is foundational for ends-means consistency, for as Rayo himself observed:

“Function determines form. Means determine ends.”

Postscript: For those of you who are interested in listening to Season One of The Vonu Podcast, the hyperlinked bibliography is located on the “Episodes” page.

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Random Quote

“Hallbrook made the point (July Free Trade) that ‘the herd has never been on any side’ and that ‘the war will be between the libertarian and the Statist vanguards.’ While correct, this is not very encouraging. For Statists have positive individualizable incentives for enslaving and plundering the herd whereas libertarians can only have negative collective incentives for liberating the herd. Libertarians will almost inevitably lose any such contest as they have throughout history.”